TabletMac Now Available for $699*
Who knew? Everyone is waiting for the Chosen One’s product announcement, yet a Mac tablet has been available for a while. Axiotron will take *customer-supplied Macbooks and for 7 bills or so turn it into a swanky tablet.
The downside is that it’s still a bulky, heavy, full featured laptop. Pretty cool for a mod though. You would think that Apple would wage war over this – but quite the contrary. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Apple registered “TabletMac” in 2005. It was granted in 2008, but Apple transfered ownership of the brand to Axiotron.
We can safely say that ‘TabletMac’ will not be unveiled next week! Some have suggested the iPad (due to a trademark battle) or the iSlate… Personally, I hope that Apple drops the silly ‘i’ thing.
It makes me wonder if tablet screen touching, even with the addition of gestural multi-touch, can really compete with a keyboard and mouse (especially a 2 button scroll wheel mouse). I guess it all depends on what you use a touch device for. I can say for sure that my iPod touch apps that require pressing buttons on the screen are awkward not only because my fingers hide what I’m looking at, but also because I can’t actually feel the buttons. In my opinion, the iPhone touch screen can’t compete with the gaming experience and feel of real buttons on a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS.
Better yet, would be to use the edge of the screen for scrolling through text and navigating menus. If only we could make our hands invisible the tablet PC with a touch screen might finally catch on. You never know, Apple might surprise us with reasons to want to touch the screen instead of the mouse.